Lost at Sea
by Jen Six
Summary: Elsa sends Anna on a diplomatic mission to Corona. En route, Anna's ship disappears, and the princess finds herself at the mercy of a stranger. Will eventually earn every bit of its M rating.
1. Chapter 1

Anna groaned as she woke up to the mid-morning sun shining down on her, the warm summer air causing sweat to roll off her in waves, making her clothing stick to her. What… happened? Where am I? the princess thought, looking around and realizing she was laying on a wooden cot, in the woods.

Groggily, she tried to piece everything together. Elsa had asked her to Corona, on state business. Kristoff and Elsa had both raised concerns about leaving during storm season, but Anna had waved away their concerns, and had gone ahead with the trip, on what was arguably the largest, most seaworthy ship Arendelle owned. Despite all of that, there had been a storm. She remembered the storm, the high waves, and the crew panicking towards the end. She remembered being tossed over, bodily tied to a piece of wood—the ship's first mate had done that. She didn't remember coming back ashore. "Am I dead?" Anna asked, not expecting a reply.

"Vapid girl, if you were dead, would you be taking up the only cot I own?" a low, coarse, female voice all but growled.

She tried to turn, but found that she was bodily tied down. "Let me go," she commanded. "You can't just tie people up for no good reason."

The woman walked towards Anna, and she got a good view. She was dressed in browns and greens, a light brown summer cloak with a faded hood drawn over her head, and her clothes plain homespun. The various herbs and pockets on her belt and inside her cloak told more, though. "You're a woods witch," Anna blurted out.

"Great, we've gone from death to commands to stating the obvious," the woods witch bemoaned. "Next thing you know, I'll get a medal for bravery for healing some petty noble girl's broken back."

"My… what? Excuse me, did you just say…"

"Yeah. If anyone else had found you, you'd never be able to walk again, and you'd most likely die in less than five years," the woods witch agreed, nodding her hooded head. The hood slid off, and a thin-faced, brown haired face revealed itself. The woods witch couldn't have been much older than Anna, if she was judging the situation correctly. "Anyways, I've got a gift. It's why I'm out here, and not running around military camps saving idiots from certain death. You'll walk again. Hell, if you're this talkative, you'll be dancing before the year is through."

"It's Anna," Anna offered. "Just call me Anna."

"Whatever, girl. Where're you from? Southern Isles? Corona? Eastfall? You're definitely not from Silverton," the woods witch rambled on, while drifting in and out of Anna's view. The red-headed princess turned her head, and saw the small, smokeless fire the woods witch had started some time ago, with two small copper pots hanging off of a metal pole just above the flames. "Pretty fair-skinned to be from too far south, though," the woods witch continued. "Doubt you're from too far west, and you don't talk like a Scot or a Viking."

"Arendelle," Anna answered. "I'm—"

"Oh, you're the Ice Queen's sister," the woods witch said. "Last time I went to town, they were talking about you. Some nonsense about letting your sister's ice dragon eat you to save the kingdom. I told the Duke's guards that they were full of shit if they believed that ice magic can animate maiden-eating dragons."

Anna felt herself go red. "Actually, I turned into an icicle," she said lamely. "Do you want the real story?"

The woods witch laughed, and moved back towards the cot. "Not particularly. Sorcery is messy business at best. Mending broken backs I can do, but it takes a bit of magic that most people don't. I don't want distractions, girl."

"I am not a—" Anna protested, but as she did, she felt the world turn upside down, literally. Her cot had rotated, and she was suspended, facing the ground. The woods witch laughed. "Nature magic, girl. Your sister's not the only one with it, although when you've got one specialty, it tends to be much stronger. Certainly, though, Arendelle figured that out. How long did the Eternal Winter last? Six weeks? A year?"

"Um, three days," Anna answered, and the woods witch went quiet. The princess felt a firm pressure on her back, followed by a loud popping sound, and warmth. After the warmth, there was pain. Blinding, excruciating pain. Anna screamed, it felt as if—_the mast was loose, and it crashed into the captain's cabin, and into the decks below. Anna rolled out of danger, in the hold, quickly enough to avoid being crushed, but a rafter slammed into her back, filling her body with pain. She groaned, tried to stand, and failed. _

_The first mate rushed down the stairs, and saw Anna struggling. She looked at the man, and saw pity in his eyes. "You'll be alright, your Highness," he yelled over the storm outside and the rushing water inside the hold. "You'll be right as rain, once we get out of this mess." _

_Anna could only nod, and watched as the wiry first mate climbed over debris, pushing beams and planks aside that she wouldn't have thought possible for a man his size. He pulled her away from the wreckage, and half-carried, half-dragged the princess on deck. "I got you," he grunted through it all, before she realized that he had her laying on her stomach, on the wreckage that had once been the captain's door. Quickly he tied a series of knots, and exchanged looks with the remaining deckhands, the ones that were still fighting to save the vessel. "Is the captain alive?" the first mate yelled. _

_"No sir!" a deckhand yelled. "Swept overboard. Orders?" _

_"Abandon ship!" the first mate yelled back. "We're done."_

Anna gasped back to consciousness, the pain subsiding. The woods witch had turned her back to facing the sky. "We're done," she said, echoing the first mate's words. "At least for today. What hit you, a house?"

"Part of a ship," Anna answered. "What's your name, anyways? Since you're saving me and all?"

The woods witch laughed. "Usually you noble types don't ask for my name. I like it that way."

"Why?"

"Why, girl? I have a gift almost no one in the world has. I have a power the vast majority of people don't understand. Have you ever tried to live, when everyone in your life thinks that you're an aberration?"

_ Elsa_... Anna thought. "I know what it's like," Anna answered. "My sister…"

"Your sister knows what it's like to be locked away, to have her powers hidden, if the town's gossip and your sleeptalking lines up," the woods witch retorted.

Anna tried to turn on her cot, to get up. The ropes holding her down hadn't loosened, though, and it was a poor effort at best. "You're not strong enough to risk your back fracturing just yet, and I'm not going to be responsible for crippling a sorceress's sister. I already did that once, in a way, and I'm not keen on doing it again."

_Okay… this woman is officially crazy,_ Anna mused. _Crazy, depressed, and lonely. Thank the gods Elsa didn't run off into the woods and become this kook._

"Anyways, girl, most folk around these parts call me Eira. The name's actually Ingrid, but you can call me whatever you want."

"Ingrid." Anna didn't know why she said the woods witch's name out loud, but she did. The woods witch all but cackled, if young witches could cackle.

"You're a brave one, aren't you?" the woods witch half-said, half asked.

Anna felt a chill run down her spine at Ingrid's words. She knew she shouldn't trust this woman, but she was, quite literally, at her mercy.

* * *

Time passed slowly at the woods witch's camp. Anna was bored, more bored than she had ever been in her entire life. Ingrid wasn't much company. It was as if the gods had conspired to take the worst of Hans and Kristoff, and give her sorcery to rival Elsa's. It just wasn't fair, and all Anna wanted to do was to go home, to Kristoff and Elsa and Olaf. Instead, she was forced to lay prone for the vast majority of the time, only getting up two or three times a day to lean heavily on the woods witch as they walked around the small camp.

After a week of this treatment, Anna finally blurted out questions at Ingrid she knew better than to ask. "How long have I been here?"

"Too long. Trust me, girl, you don't want the answer to that question."

"But my sister! Elsa will be looking for me, when word reaches Arendelle that I haven't retur—"

"Look, girl, Arendelle's probably already buried an effigy of you," Ingrid interrupted. "The only reason you're in the shape you're in is because of a miracle. You should have died in those seas. You should have died from your injuries, from the sea, from complications… but you didn't."

Anna continued, repeating herself. "How long, Ingrid?"

Ingrid bowed her hooded head. "I found you in September. It's July, currently."

"You… what?" Anna asked, dumbfounded.

"Look, girl, if I'd known who you were, I'd have sent word to your family. Unfortunately, the nearest kingdom to my humble abode is Silverton, and if I sent word that I was healing a terribly ill woman with no identifying marks other than a gown with crocus embroidery, I would have soldiers in my camp. Real, live, soldiers that don't follow orders from their captains and rulers well. Silverton already has a thing against magic, and I've had to change merchants six times within the last ten months, because they've noticed what I'm buying," the woods witch explained. Anna pretended she could see Ingrid's thin face in her mind, added in the scowl that she knew must be there.

"Then why are you helping me?"

The woods witch sat next to the cot, and waved a hand. The ropes unknotted themselves, and slid down the cot, neatly coiling themselves at the red-haired princess's feet. "I would say I have my reasons, but you wouldn't leave it there," Ingrid answered. "I promised my mother I would try to help people."

"Oh. Okay," Anna said slowly. It didn't make any sense.

"I'm not a nice person, and I wasn't a good kid. My father hated magic, and he spoiled me until the day I healed my brother's arm. It was an accident, how he broke it, and it was an accident that I healed it. My father _rewarded_ my talent, my ability, with breaking my fingers. Well, he didn't do it, but he gave the order."

Ingrid paused. "My brother, Anders, apologized repeatedly to me, for that. I pushed him away, told him that I hated him. I never got a chance to speak to him again. Mother did what she could to help my fingers heal, but healing's a slow process when you're not affected by your own magic. When my fingers healed enough to where I could use them, I left home."

"Because you hated your father?"

The woods witch gave a hollow laugh. "Because I was afraid of what would happen, if I stayed. My father loathed magic, feared everything he didn't understand. What would happen if someone got sick, and I couldn't heal them? What would happen, the next time someone died? I made certain, before I left, that my brother wouldn't go looking after me. The last time that I spoke to him, I told him that I was leaving, that it was the only way for me to be—"

"Free," Anna finished. "Elsa was the same way. She was so afraid of what she could do, she fled Arendelle. And after she fled, she stopped being afraid, at least, for a little while."

The woods witch stopped talking for a moment, and Anna pushed herself to sitting upright on the cot. For the first time in the time she had been in Ingrid's camp, she was sitting up at a time other than one Ingrid dictated. It was an odd feeling, yes, but it was one Anna relished.

"If I send word to Arendelle that I have you, there's no guarantee that it will make it there. There's also not a guarantee that your queen will believe a letter scratched out on cloth. It's all I got."

"She will if I write it," Anna said confidently. "Give it here."

Ingrid stood up, and walked over towards a pack. Anna hadn't noticed it before, but it was roughly the same color of the wood witch's cloak. She watched silently as the other woman pulled out a stained rag, a bottle of ink, and a sharpened stick shaped for the task. Something about the ink seemed off to Anna, but she couldn't place the feeling. When Ingrid gave the bottle to Anna, she knew.

"You're noble-born," Anna blurted out.

Ingrid stared, and Anna noticed her eyes for the first time. They were cold, an icy blue not unlike Elsa's, but they lacked any warmth. "And?" Ingrid spat back. "There's no need to be so hostile," Anna defended. "Your father wasn't a worldly man, and he had money. It's why you have an ink bottle, from Corona. You're reusing the ink bottle, because it's all you have of home. It's really kind of sweet, if you think about it."

Silence came over the camp as Ingrid shoved the writing tools into Anna's hands and said nothing. Anna waited, before saying calmly, "If you'd like, you can come to Arendelle with me. Elsa's been through most of what you've gone through, in one way or another. She tries to talk with me about it, but it's like she thinks I don't understand. You could use each other." "When you're healthy enough to walk a mile without fainting," Ingrid said, all trace of venom gone from her voice. "When you're healthy enough, I'll go with you."

For the rest of the night, Anna did not say another word towards the woods witch. She focused on her writing, which was usually fluid, made choppy by a lack of use. When she was done with her letter, she read over it three times, before setting it down on the ground. If Arendelle received the letter, Anna knew that there would be no doubt who the letter came from, but it would raise more questions than it answered. The princess felt guilty over the matter entirely, but until she could pry more information out of Ingrid, about what exactly had caused her to have ten months of her life, of her memory gone, it would have to do.

She just prayed it got to Elsa quickly. She wasn't certain how much more of Ingrid's mood swings she could take.


	2. Chapter 2

Queen Elsa of Arendelle was eating in her study, as she was prone to doing. Ever since she had sent Anna on that fateful voyage, she had only blamed herself for Anna's death, and as a result, the queen had thrown herself into her work.

"Your Majesty," Kai said, interrupting Elsa before she dribbled soup onto a treaty with Eastfall. Elsa dropped the spoon back into her bowl, and looked up at the steward. "We just received word from Eastfall about the treaty," he began. Elsa looked up at the portly man, and nodded.

"It's due in a week," Elsa reminded her steward.

"They're demanding it by noon," he responded, holding up another letter. "King Stieg has also changed the terms of the treaty to include thirty-four percent of all exports at half cost, and your hand."

Elsa blinked once. "He doesn't want a trade agreement. He wants a war."

Kai nodded. "You've heard the rumors about the man, surely?"

Elsa frowned, biting her lip. King Stieg, it was said, was from a long line of sorcerers, who prided themselves on continuing lines of rulers with magical ability. While Elsa knew that people were prone to embellishing stories, half the stories had him brutally decapitating traitors from a half mile away, and the other half told stories about how he wasn't affected by the elements, that he could breathe underwater, survive being boiled alive, and dig his way out of an avalanche, all in the same day. Those weren't the rumors about Eastfall's king that bothered her, though. "Didn't he kill his wife because she didn't give him an heir with his gift?" Elsa asked aloud.

"Three years ago, your Majesty," Kai agreed. "There never was any official proof, but the crown prince fled the castle after the queen's funeral, to a summer estate near Weselton. He sees no one, including the Duke. Very few local servants are hired on, and the ones that are hired on don't tend to talk."

_Papa… you chose to do the same, with me. You kept me from Anna, from the world, to protect me._

… _Anna…_

Immediately, Elsa felt the tears come unbidden. After all they had been through, Elsa had managed to lose her sister, the same sister who had chosen to die for her, in a completely avoidable scenario. It should have been a diplomat on that ship, but Anna wanted to see Corona, to meet the cousin they had only seen at the coronation. Elsa had known then, and knew now, that it was a mistake to send her overseas, during the same time of year as when their parents had been lost. She had let Anna persuade her, against her better judgment.

If Kai noticed the tears, he refused to mention them. Instead, Kai interrupted Elsa's quickly forming chain of self-deprecating thoughts. "Do you want me to send a messenger to Prince Lucas? If we have the heir's support, the king may delay waging war until he can convince him otherwise. It would give us time to reinforce the city and send out summons to neighboring kingdoms."

Elsa shook her head. "Prince Lucas may have distanced himself from King Stieg, but it's unlikely that he would be of any assistance as anything other than a hostage. I refuse to play at holding hostages, Kai. Send out summons to Weselton and the others anyways. I'd like to avoid putting Arendelle into another Endless Winter."

* * *

When Anna and Elsa were children, before they were separated, Anna used to tag along to Elsa's tutoring sessions. One tutor, a rather comical man with a moustache wider than his face, taught geography, and started by trying to show the girls where all of Arendelle's trade partners were on a map of the North Sea. Most places, such as Weselton, were within two or three days ride by carriage. Silverton, however, was within three days travel by sea, the tutor had pointed out, with no roads safe for royal travel.

Anna spent most of her second week back in the land of the living trying to convince Ingrid to let her work on standing up by herself. It was painfully slow progress, and Ingrid had hardly any bedside manner to go along with her magical healing abilities. "Vapid, vapid girl," Ingrid swore, "Do try and grow some muscle, will you?"

Anna huffed, her face flushing red. She wasn't used to being called vapid. The spare to the throne? Yes. The impulsive, immature idiot? Yes, to more times than she could count. Gullible and not fit to rule if anything happened to Elsa? She still remembered the sting from when she heard a maid talking when she was thirteen. "I'm trying," she said through clenched teeth. "You try this sometime."

Ingrid waved her fingers in the princess's direction. "I'll pass."

The red-haired princess stubbornly pulled herself into a sitting position on the cot. Ingrid arched an eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing. It wasn't until Anna swung her legs over the side of the cot that Ingrid said, "You're going to hurt yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Anna gritted her teeth together, and stood up.

And almost immediately, fell.

"Look, princess, ten months is a long time," Ingrid said. "There's only so much I can do. You're going to have to work at this slowly."

_Everyone's a bit of a fixer upper…_

* * *

Two weeks of barely being able to get out of bed turned into another two weeks of being able to walk as far as she could throw, then to two weeks of being able to walk further, then further. Anna knew she was getting better, and the hope she had been harboring to return home, to Kristoff and Elsa mostly, but also to Sven and Olaf, had been burning brightly. She knew she was a little too excited when Ingrid suggested they start making for Silverton.

"The guards will notice your hair, if anything," Ingrid started explaining. "And when traveling through Silverton, they don't take kindly to anything mystical. All it would take for us to be here for months would be for someone to realize that you're Princess Anna of Arendelle."

"Or that you're not just a simple woods witch," Anna interrupted. "So, how do you want to do this? Disguises?"

Ingrid rolled her eyes. "You just keep your mouth shut. Your accent gives away that you're noble born, and that alone would get people talking."

_I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut,_ Anna thought. "And the hair?" Anna asked instead.

"Just keep your mouth shut and they're think you're a timid Irish lass," Ingrid drawled.

The travel to Silverton was also uneventful. Ingrid refused to answer any questions Anna asked, and barely spoke to the princess. At one point, Anna was so desperate for anything resembling conversation, that she asked the one question she knew better than to ask.

"So, is there a special man in your life?" Anna asked lamely, after the second day of being ignored.

Ingrid gave an unladylike grunt.

"…So, is that a yes or a no?"

Another grunt.

"I'll take that as a yes. Does he know how you feel about him?"

Grunt.

"That's sweet. Does he feel the same way about you?"

Grunt.

"Why aren't you with him, then?"

Grunt.

"Is it because your families are feuding? I hear that happens a lot."

Grunt.

"That's a shame. Is he a commoner?"

Grunt.

"Is he a troll? 'Cause that would explain your grunting right now."

Grunt.

"Hey, I only speak three languages—five, if you count Swedish and Dutch. I don't speak Troll."

Grunt.

"At least you speak Norwegian well. I'm assuming that your family isn't terribly far from Arendelle, is it?"

Grunt.

"I can think of a few lords that would be upset that their daughter would fall in love with a commoner, but you did say your father basically broke your fingers, so I guess when you ran away, you weren't thinking about love."

Grunt.

"Did you at least make amends with your brother, since, you know, it was kind of an accident?"

Grunt.

"You know, this conversation would go so much better if you would just answer these questions. I haven't done anything to you that you didn't volunteer for."

A pause. Ingrid froze for a step, and then grunted. Anna sighed in exasperation.

"So, let's go back to your beau. A mystery commoner, who I haven't seen, even though it's been almost three weeks of being awake. You return each other's affections, but you haven't seen each other in three weeks. What's the issue?"

Grunt.

"We're back to the noncommittal grunting? Does his work keep him in Silverton?"

Grunt.

"I'm going to guess he's either a jeweler, or not a jeweler."

Grunt.

"Oh hey, if you look at that, I got a question right for once! He doesn't leave Silverton a lot for his work, does he? Otherwise I'm sure he would have found a way to your camp by now."

Grunt.

"Does anyone in your family even know you're fond of him?"

Grunt.

"Is he cute?"

Anna finally caught Ingrid's eye as the woods witch blushed. Triumphantly, Anna all but yelled, "Aha! So there is a beau, and he's cute! Does he have a name?"

And… Grunt.

* * *

"Your Majesty, if half of our reports are factual, I don't think it's wise to meet with King Stieg alone," Kai informed Elsa for the hundredth time in the last hour. "This is a terrible idea. It appears that you… you're… _capitulating._ The only thing worse would be if the populace found out that you intended to die with no heir to carry on Arendelle's line."

Elsa sighed, and turned to look at Kai. The steward was standing in the doorway of Elsa's study, suitably dressed for the unpleasant occasion of escorting the king to meet with Arendelle's monarch. "I will be fine," Elsa reminded Kai for as many times as he had _informed_ her. "If half the reports are true, we just have a very dangerous man with an army that could annihilate Arendelle. I'd only be worried if all of the reports are true."

_Immunity to ice magic, especially. If that's true, I wonder if he's immune to a lute to the head?_

Kai bowed stiffly. "Very well, your Majesty. Shall I send him in?"

"You… kept him waiting?"

Kai smiled. "It seemed prudent, considering that he required your answer at precisely noon, and your answer is a resounding no. He wants a war, yes? If we can afford to waste his time with a delayed meeting, and a _frustratingly long_ negotiation, the council just may be able to work a military alliance in time to save us from having to have you freeze over the fjord and find out if he is really immune to ice and snow."

Elsa refused to let her mask slip, but inwardly, she was grinning. King Stieg's letter had been… _uncouth, _to put things mildly. "Let him in, then."

Kai left, and returned very shortly with a short, balding man, with tufts of graying hair sticking out from behind his ears. To put it bluntly, King Stieg was not a very intimidating man. "Your Majesty," he rasped, his voice hoarse, "It is a pleasure to meet Arendelle's lovely queen."

In Elsa's mind, all she heard was the older man saying, _I'm glad you have come to your_ _senses._ It galled the young queen to no end.

"I wish we could have found a way to have met under auspicious circumstances," Elsa found herself replying, without thinking. "Meeting under a threat of open war hardly seems courteous."

King Stieg laughed, his voice echoing off the small study walls as if the room was suddenly much, much larger. _Magic, or presence? _Elsa found herself thinking. "Your Majesty, you find the terms reasonable, I assume?" he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Quite unreasonable, actually," Elsa replied, keeping her voice calm and even, her mask still in place. "Thirty four percent of our net trade would beggar Arendelle, as anyone with an eye for economics can see." _Or as anyone with half a brain and little education can understand._

"It would be supplemented, of course, by our own vast wealth," King Stieg returned. "With the world as they are, such wealth cannot be ignored."

_Which is what? More peasants than you know how to feed? Arable land, in a good location for farming, that's safe from wandering armies?_

"Arendelle is isolated from most of Europe," Elsa said instead. "The wars that much of the world faces are none of Arendelle's concern. Between Corona and Silverton, we have no need for your agriculture or metals."

King Stieg smiled, and Elsa felt her stomach fall as she realized what he would say next, even before he said it.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it? If Corona and Silverton remained untouched by war?" the king openly mused. "It's such a pity, that you cut off trade with Weselton. They're in a poor enough location for an attack, but Silverton? There's no defensive structures built, beyond a ten foot mud wall that spends most of it's time falling down. On top of that, _your Majesty_, Silverton's closest neighbor, and partner, in trade is, well… Eastfall. And don't get me started on Corona. It's just a short trek down the coast, and almost as laughably unprotected. Why, three warships and a company of infantry would likely be enough to crush any resistance, and throw in a second company, armed with rifles, and it would be laughably one-sided."

Elsa remained silent as the king continued. "Why, no, your Majesty, even if you had the complete backing of the Southern Isles and Weselton, neither armadas would make it to the fjord before you would be forced to freeze it shut. You would either have to single handedly slaughter every man and boy of age, force Arendelle into a famine, and somehow manage to kill _me_, or you could just realize defeat early, and acquiesce."

"No." The words left Elsa before she had the time to think things through. "You're offering death by my hand, or poverty and famine by yours. Why?"

The king laughed. "You're not a very personable person, are you?" he asked bluntly. "I can name three royals and five nobles who would have said that. Eight people, in the known world. You would think that this is your first time negotiating with an equal."

_Because it is._

"Trade isn't what you want, is it, your Majesty?" Elsa asked. "You want… an _heir."_

"An heir with the Ice Queen's own gift? That would be lovely, your Majesty, but magic doesn't work that way. And I've had much study in the ways of magic," the king returned. "It's more of, I am the first king in the thousand years Eastfall has been a kingdom to not have produced an heir with the gift. Simply speaking, I will not be known as the King who ended a thousand years of magic through the weakness of my line."

"And this… gift. I take it you possess it?" Elsa asked.

"Naturally. My father was quick to explain why my gift was the most… _useful_ I could possibly hope for, in military strategy. Virtually immune to all forms of catastrophe, you see. It would take an act of God for a mere mortal to strike me down, even if that mortal was similarly gifted."

_All forms of catastrophe? I wonder if an icicle to the heart would bypass his immunity?_ _If only Anna was here… She'd have found a way by now to incapacitate him, even if it wouldn't exactly be a diplomatic decision…_

"What say you, your Majesty? Death by my hand, or by your own?" King Stieg boasted, interrupting her thoughts.

Elsa felt her mask slip before she was even aware that she was glowering at the foreign king. As lasting as her rage was, a single idea floated through the storm inside. _Kai said to delay… It would be better than nothing…_ "Give me proof that you aren't some imposter pretending you have magic," Elsa said suddenly. "Irrefutable proof, and I will… acquiesce to your wishes."

King Stieg's laugh shook her to her core. "Why, _Elsa,_" he drawled familiarly, "I do think this is a start to a _wonderful_ future."


End file.
